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It was for the best that they had sent Pluto alone; even though anyone and everyone should have been able to figure out where Neptune would have run, in all the chaos—Jupiter collapsed and bloody on the ground, Venus blinded and screaming, the Princess herself fallen to her knees amongst the mass casualties—nobody was thinking clearly.
Nobody, of course, except for Pluto.
She found her on the edge of the nearby cliff by the sea, eyes closed, detransformed, in only a simple dark blue dress that seemed far too scant for the bitter fall winds. Michiru showed no signs of noticing Pluto, but still said, without looking, “I knew they’d send you.”
“Michiru…” Pluto moved to her side, to sit by her, but instead, Michiru turned around, turned her impassive, frosty blue gaze on Pluto, and it still, even after years as a family, froze her in her tracks. “Jupiter and Venus—” she started, but Michiru cut her off.
“I don’t want to hear,” she said.
“I thought—”
“Does it matter?” Michiru said. She fought hard to remain neutral in tone, but Pluto still heard the quaver in her voice as she continued, “I bought down that building. There must have been casualties. I didn’t think I would have any more innocent blood on my hands after today…”
And in a sudden flash, the memory shot back into Pluto’s subconscious, part of a set of memories she’d spent years upon years trying to defeat.
She remembered the proud soldier from eons ago, sprawled on the ground, blood mixing with the moondust on the ground to form a sticky paste that clung to the bottoms of Pluto’s boots as she knelt, desperate, hoping against hope that there was something she could do, something she could fix, that it wouldn’t really be the end.
But even she, the Guardian of Time, witness to ages upon ages of battle and war and death, sucked in an involuntary breath when she saw the gaping wound frothing blood at Sailor Uranus’ abdomen.
It was a wonder that Uranus was even still conscious, much less that she was in a lucid enough state to gasp, “Tell Nep—”
The name disappeared in a gurgle. Uranus coughed, face contorted in agony, her teeth sticky red, and Pluto knew, senshi healing or none, that she had maybe minutes, probably seconds.
“Uranus,” she whispered.
Uranus tried to say something else, wheezed, her chest bubbling, and Pluto grabbed her hand. Uranus latched onto her with surprising strength, green eyes desperate and cloudy and rimmed with tears, and forced another wet, gasping breath. “Don’t,” Pluto breathed, pushing the damp bangs back from the fallen senshi’s forehead. “She knows, Uranus. She lives.”
It was all Uranus needed to stop fighting.
Uranus held out for only a few more seconds before she started going, her grip loosening, her eyes finally glazing over, and that was it, that was the beginning of the Moon Kingdom’s fall. It had been clear then, clear in a way life rarely seemed when one was actually busy living it.
And even Pluto, for all of her knowledge, had never seen it coming, the attack that ended Uranus’ life in the present day.
“It was for revenge,” Pluto said softly. “I should have known. I shouldn’t have let you fight—”
“I killed it,” Michiru said, “the commander of all the youma—that was what I needed. I never thought that all of those people would be in the way…I never thought I’d make it out…but then. There are lots of things I never planned that happened anyway.” Michiru swiveled back to gaze out at the sea again, and Pluto wondered if she remembered, if Michiru had any recollection of the Silver Millennium, the fall of the Moon Kingdom, the way her breath had hitched as Pluto had presented Neptune with the Space Sword, eyes full of apologies, eyes full of sorrow that she, Pluto, had been the only one to get out alive, that she had failed in bringing the two back together.
She wondered if Michiru remembered how Neptune had stared at the sword, eyes wide, for only a matter of seconds, before taking it from Pluto’s hands. The Sword had nearly exploded, letting off such a sharp beam of golden light that Pluto had been temporarily blinded. Its energy tore across the battlefield with the force of Neptune’s heartbroken scream behind it, the Sword backing her up in every way with its own potent display of sorrow at the loss of its owner, allowing itself to be wielded in death by only one other person, the person who still held a piece of Uranus’ soul.
Pluto wondered if Michiru remembered just how eerily the present had paralleled the past.
How long ago had it been? A week? Perhaps two?
Nobody had thought it was a serious wound at the time. They were senshi; they were always getting thrown around like cosmic playthings. But the attack had hit Uranus just perfectly, awfully right, a headshot of energy crashing her into a building. Pluto had expected her to get back up, fierce Uranus coming out swinging as always.
It was only when Jupiter, who had been on the same flank, had screamed for help, her voice ragged with terror, that anyone had even suspected that something was wrong.
The youma had been vanquished, the commander scuttling away, but nobody paid it much mind at the sight Uranus, splayed awkwardly on the ground, eyes staring out at nothing.
Ami would tell Pluto later that Haruka had probably been effectively killed on contact. While her life support kept Haruka alive for that one night, overnight, she’d been brain dead from the moment that Ami had gotten to her. By the first sign of daylight the next morning, Haruka’s organs were already slowly shutting down.
Minako kicked the rest of the Inners out in those last few moments, and Pluto would be eternally grateful to her for her foresight; even as tears streamed down her face, which was already blotchy from crying, Minako had read the situation perfectly, knew the need for privacy, acted the general even in the hardest moments.
Left were only Hotaru in a corner, knees pulled up to her chin, crying quietly; Pluto; and finally, Michiru.
Michiru barely moved, hardly blinked, didn’t even say a word; just clutched Haruka’s limp hand and watched the heart rate monitor slow to twenty beats per minute…ten…four…
Then nothing except the steady drone.
Ami came into switch it off, already starting to tear up again, began murmuring condolences, but then Michiru stood abruptly and left the room.
Nobody heard from her for two weeks.
Pluto had been convinced that they would never see her again.
But then she showed up, at the youma battle, with the commander who had dealt the fatal blow to Haruka, and everyone was encouraged, thought maybe, just maybe, there was a way she could be saved.
“They’d understand,” Pluto said, breaking the silence. “If you just—”
“You don’t believe that,” Michiru replied coolly. “I’ve become a liability at best, a traitor at worst.”
“You’re a soldier, Michiru,” Pluto said. “You’ll always—”
“Don’t.” Michiru swallowed hard. “You know as well as anyone that I’ve never been half the soldier the rest of you were. I’ve always had different priorities. You’ve always known that. And without her…” She quickly looked away, hair falling in a curtain to obscure her face.
“Please,” Pluto says, “you aren’t…you aren’t the only one of us who’s lost. You can still…”
Her own voice wavers, threatens to break, as the memories come back again, reminding her just how wrong things became back inthe Moon Kingdom, just how much she should’ve done…
…But then, who hadn’t been caught up in the glow of the Queen? Serenity was famous for it, for the way that nobody could be around her without the embrace of her warmth. And Pluto, for a brief period, had been her favorite.
She’d said that, behind closed doors, eyes shining and kind as Pluto somehow, unbelievably, found herself in the monarch’s bed, touching her with a cautious reverence, as if moving too fast would scare Serenity away.
Pluto was eternal. Pluto would always be there.
And as the political climate darkened, she waited, like a silly schoolgirl with a crush, like a lost puppy, for Serenity to turn her way, to speak to her in such confidence, to seek the help of her most trusted advisor. She fretted at the Time Gate and searched for solutions, but she’d been away for too long. It wasn’t until too late, until Beryl’s forces had rushed the Moon Kingdom, and she’d watched Uranus and Neptune die, and she’d felt the souls of the guardians of the Princess blink out one by one, until she found herself with Serenity in her arms once more. This Serenity was a husk of herself and fading fast, and as she’d apologized, with her last gasping breaths, Pluto had finally, finally allowed herself to break down.
“We were promised,” Michiru said. “We promised each other we’d reunite in the next life, and I thought…” She laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “I believed in eternity. I believed in it all.”
Pluto’s heart wrenched, and at the same time, it was the same thing all over again, the very thing she should have seen coming, had she just opened up her eyes, read the signs.
She’d spent what seemed like small eternities, even to her, poring through the time stream and unraveling the strands and staring into the whirling abyss, looking for just one happy ending for the souls of the two girls she had known, had trained, had loved for millennia—
“Pluto.”
—and she had never been able to find it, not even once, not one single thread that ended with all of them together and happy and alive in Crystal Tokyo. Pluto had prayed that she was wrong, had hoped, endlessly, that she was wrong. She’d been wrong before (castles blown to pieces and fierce soldiers bleeding out before her eyes, and, like a stab, the image of the once proud monarch pale and broken on the palace floor); she could have been wrong again.
Michiru had noticed, because of course she had. One evening at the cafe, shortly after Pluto’s return, she’d seized the opportunity when Haruka left for the restroom to ask the question that Pluto had hoped would never occurred to her: why, exactly, did Chibiusa have no memory of them in Crystal Tokyo?
Pluto had played it off, assuring Michiru that it was just because of the mess in the timeline they’d sorted out earlier, and that everything was slated to turn out perfectly differently.
She realized her mistake immediately; Michiru was far too sharp to not have noticed. Pluto never gave a straight answer, never offered blanket, one hundred percent fact reassurances. But Michiru hadn’t questioned it. At the time, she’d probably been desperate herself to believe that the words Pluto spoke were true.
“Pluto.” Michiru stared at her, jaw set. “I have to ask you a favor.”
For a brief moment, Pluto allowed herself to believe. Perhaps it could work, perhaps she could be saved. Perhaps they could come up with a story. They would go back to the team and it would take time, but they could do it, they could figure it out. They could leave for a bit, if they needed to, give the Inners space, let them cool off, and then when it came time for everything they would forgive. Pluto knew they’d forgive, knew that the love and justice they’d all willingly died for on multiple occasions would win the day, would bring them back together again, would—
“Nobody would ever know,” Michiru said, so casually that it had to be an affectation. “By the cliff—they would all assume it had been me. You could tell them that you’d arrived too late. You’d attempted to stop me, but you hadn’t been able to, and—”
Pluto’s blood ran cold at the realization of just what Michiru was implying. “You can’t ask me to do this.” Pluto took an involuntary step back in horror, unable to actually believe the words coming from Michiru’s mouth.
“I would myself—I…I’ve tried,” Michiru murmured, ducking her head, “but the Senshi healing just stops anything…and the sea, it won’t take me, it won’t let me— It has to be great power. Our force, or the force our enemies wield. That’s the only way—”
“No.” Pluto’s stomach lurched at the sudden horror of her own imagination—what Michiru must have been doing, all those days when she was gone—and for a brief moment she worried she was about to be sick. “Neptune. Whatever it is you need, I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to get it for you. We can do anything you want. It doesn’t have to—”
“It does.” Michiru’s voice had an air of crushing finality. “Do you truly expect me to fight on without the partner my star seed has always known? Do you truly expect the rest of the senshi to ever trust me again? My one connection to love is gone—I don’t care about justice. Pluto—Setsuna—as friends—”
“NO!” Her voice rose so sharply that it startled both of them, but Pluto couldn’t stop. “You ask me to murder you in cold blood as a friend?”
“Are you not a soldier of the Serenity line?” Michiru snapped.
Pluto’s grip tightened on the rod. “Of course, but—”
“As a soldier of Serenity’s love,” Michiru continued, and, oh, she’s not specifying, and the memories are crashing against Pluto’s mind like dark, sick, tidal waves, “you must, then, know the meaning of mercy.”
Mercy. Pluto’s hands began to shake. Mercy. Compassion towards those who have trespassed. Allowing, finally, relief. Was that really what Michiru sought? Relief? Pluto would never be able to live with herself—but then again, in her eternal lifespan, she has done nothing but meddle. Put her heart where it could never belong. Would it actually be an act of mercy? “Michiru…”
Michiru spat the words, her tone one of cold, icy dismissiveness that Pluto never thought would ever be wielded her way: “Would you really allow yet another kingdom to collapse for the sake of your own sentimentality?”
Pluto didn’t even realize she’d moved, the words ripping through her like the sharpest and most damning of knives, because of course, of course…
Of course. Michiru, regardless of whatever else she’d said, had been right. It had alwas been Neptune who was the quintessential soldier amongst them all. Uranus would hesitate. Pluto herself had tried twice to help, and both times, she was left with death and destruction in the wake. But Neptune—Neptune was the strategist. She knew liabilities. And she knew how to win.
With Pluto’s Rod pointed at her throat, Michiru smiled. Yet while it was the smile of a winner, it was far from the smile of a victor. Her voice was grim and satisfied as she raised her eyes to meet Pluto’s. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry,” Pluto said, and it wasn’t even until her voice cracked midway through the sentence that she even realized that she was crying for the first time in years, in millennia, her face damp and her hands trembling on the Rod. “I’m so, so sorry for everything. You never deserved—” She cut herself off before she could completely break down. Such an act wasn’t allowed for the Guardian of Time, after all. There could be no regrets. And, again, what was deserved? What did that have anything to do with fate?
As she focused her energy, Pluto knew this was it, again, in a way that she hadn’t ever known so clearly and so vividly before. It was the end of the world all over again.
Just like before, she had done absolutely nothing to stop it.
She had to close her eyes. She couldn’t watch, performing the activities with a sort of strange detachedness that should have been expected from the Guardian of Time. It was the exact same detachedness that could have saved them all, if only she hadn’t…
Pluto took a deep, shaky breath, the words even more quiet than usual, yet echoing in her ears (she imagined that she’d never fully be rid of this particular echo): “Dead Scream.”
And the future began.